An exploration of pizza in and around Rochester, NY, one pizzeria at a time

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

NYC (Brooklyn) Roundup Cont'd: 99¢ Pizza

Pizza in New York City is generally very good. I think we can all agree on that.
But in NYC or elsewhere, slices that sell for 99 cents are generally not that good, at least on a purely qualitative level, i.e., without taking the price into account.
So what about a 99-cent slice in NYC? How does it stack up against other slices in the city, and against other cheap slices elsewhere?
Based on my limited experience, I'd say if you get a 99-cent slice in New York - which has become something of a phenomenon in recent years -
it's about what you would expect. Not awful, but not great, and, well, probably worth about 99 cents.
I wouldn't ordinarily be eating 99-cent slices in New York City, but there was a 99-cent pizza shop (and as far as I could tell, that was the name - "99¢ Fresh Hot Pizza") a half block from my B&B in Brooklyn (which I highly recommend, by the way). And the second-nearest pizzeria was some blocks away. When you're hungry and you want pizza, you do what you have to. This was, outwardly, a NY-style slice, to be sure, but on closer inspectiion it was a poor representative of the style. The underside was heavily screen-marked,and unevenly browned.
The cheese was skimpy, but decent, and the sauce was pretty basic tomato sauce. I detected a hint of dried herbs.
Why bother writing about this? Well, you, like me, may go to the City every now and then, and in the course of your travels you may run across one or more of these 99-cent places. And if you're like me, you may wonder, is this really just as good as the place down the block, that's selling slices for $2.50 or more? You can't always tell just by looking at the slices on the trays.
I would say, based on this, no, it's not as good as your average NYC slice joint. Whether it's worth it is up to you. Lots of factors will figure into the equation: your budget, what else is nearby, whether you really want pizza as opposed to something else, how hungry you are, and so on.
This was far from the worst slice of pizza I've ever eaten. It was a less-good version of a typical NYC slice, and that's not necessarily bad. But if you have the time and the money (and if you don't have the money, you probably shouldn't be going to NYC), find a different pizzeria, or just get a dirty water dog.
99¢ Fresh Hot Pizza,
51D Willoughby St., Brooklyn
718-797-3841

Ratings Guide

A: great; one of the best this area has to offerB: pretty good; not top-notch, but definitely good, and better than averageC: OK; nothing special, but it’ll do; typical for our areaD: edible; if you’ve already paid for it, you might as well eat itF: downright bad; toss it and get something else